1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel expansion system for use in an internal combustion engine. Specifically, there is disclosed herein the methodology for pretreating liquid fuel wherein such pretreatment is provided by a staged, gradual heating and expansion of the fuel and its attainment of a peak heated and expanded condition by use of a novel electromagnetic induction (EMI) heating - dispersing head. After treatment of the fuel, it is injected into the engine, either at the throat of the conventional carburetor or directly into the heads of the cylinders, as is currently done with fuel injected engines.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The Fulenwider, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,852, for a MICROWAVE ENERGY APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE, teaches a device for Vaporizing and heating liquid fuel for use in an internal combustion engine by subjecting the liquid to a radio frequency microwave energy before introduction into the engine cylinders. The approach is distinctly different from the instant invention in that Fulenwider, Jr. employs radio frequency (RF) energy treatment of the gasoline-Water-air mixture subsequent to carburetion and as the mixture is being injected into the intake manifold. Because there is a high intensity treatment of the fuel-air mixture prior to introduction to the engine proper, the instant inventor feeling that such a system lacked a good deal of inherent safety, decided to pretreat only fuel and avoid the art of Fulenwider, Jr., in all of its aspects.
Inventors Abe et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,823 employ a fuel evaporator, a PTC resistance element-heated ceramic plate, for heating the fuel and evaporating it prior to introduction into the air-fuel intake passage of an engine. The plate is an electrically heated ceramic element having a foraminous (perforated) surface through which fuel is inducted into the carburetor of the engine. Anders et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,810, disclose an ultrasonic atomizer system to atomize fuel which is to be injected into internal combustion engines. The atomizer system includes an atomizer housing having a pressure chamber into which fuel is delivered under pressure by a pump. An ultrasonic vibrator protrudes into the atomizer housing; therefore, Anders et al. provide a true fuel injector, using the ultrasonic device within the injector itself. The invention of Tuckey, U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,654, provides standard carburetion and delivers liquid fuel into a heating chamber which is colocated in the throttle body of a carburetor. Tuckey employs resistance elements, not unlike the art of Abe, but meters exhaust gases into the throttle body. Earle, U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,764 teaches a fuel vaporization method and apparatus. This disclosure details a means for using engine heat to conductively heat carburetor air-fuel mixtures after carburetion. Rawlings, U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,118, does something more than the aforesaid inventors by heating air as it is taken into the air intake manifold. A resistance heating element is situated within the air intake apparatus and a thermistor is disposed downstream of the heating element to insure that the air drawn through the air intake apparatus, into the intake manifold, is heated to a temperature within the range of 160 degrees F. to 180 degrees F. Thus Rawlings, after preheating a fuel mixture, combines it with air that is also preheated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,353, issued to Koike et al. in 1987, discloses the use of ultrasonic waves for the purpose of atomizing the fuel of an internal combustion engine which is being carbureted in the normal fashion. The inventor is concerned primarily with the electronics of the atomizing system, as well as the feedback control of the circuit.
To the instant inventor, after this study of the prior art, it appeared that no previous inventor has sought to employ his staged technique of pretreating only fuel for use in an internal combustion engine. Most notably, there is no extant reference to the use of EMI heating of an expansion and dispersion element. Sonic cleaning devices are, of course, well known in the art; but the novel method of attaining ultrasonic stimulation as in the instant invention, has not come to the instant inventor through any of the extensive readings made or searches conducted in the prior art. The use of RF energy for the purposes of heating a fuel or fuel-air mixture was eschewed by the instant inventor more for reasons of practicality rather then any other reason that can only be inferred.
Many objectives and advantages of the instant invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following disclosure and from the method taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which the salient aspects of the invention are clearly delineated. It will also be apparent to those so skilled that many modifications of the basic art forms may also be made and that practice with the invention will also give rise to several derived concepts, as well as apparatus. It is the inventor's true purpose therefore to teach a method of liquid fuel pretreatment that is conducted in a set of discrete stages so that the desired effect is achieved simply and inexpensively through the use of a durable, low cost apparatus.